I am in an uncomfortable position and I feel the noose tightening.
I have written several pieces for LRC expressing my apprehension and foreboding on all of the Covid responses by governments around the world. The succinct summary of my views is that all policy has had one near term goal, vaccinate every living human being; leading to an intermediate goal, to have every human being registered in a database that will be the basis of a communist Chinese style social credit score. I leave it to the reader to imagine the long term goal.
I don’t believe resistance is futile, but sometimes it seems that way. I live in France. President Macron has announced new “protective” measures. They are summarized in this announcement Attestation de vaccination et pass sanitaire à l’heure des vacances d’été. The Google translation to some of it follows below.
Get vaccinated this summer. This is one of the main levers to prevent a resumption of the Covid-19 epidemic at the start of the September school year. Better yet, going on vacation with a complete immunization cycle helps protect you against severe forms of Covid-19 on the one hand, and others on the other. With a full vaccination, the certified vaccination certificate gives access to certain activities more freely.
In practice, the certified vaccination certificate is one of the elements that make up the health pass. In the current context, the use of the certificate has been extended to several places open to the public:
July 21: all places of leisure and culture bringing together more than 50 people;
Early August: cafes, restaurants, shopping centers, hospitals, retirement homes, medico-social establishments, travel by plane, train and coach for long-distance journeys.
I am feeling the full brunt of the propaganda. At home, my 13 year-old daughter wants to be vaccinated “to protect others,” but she needs my signed approval. She asks me why I think differently than everyone else. My wife received a single shot (because she had been infected) of the Pfizer vaccine to make her life “easier.” If I am excluded from restaurants and cinemas much of our leisure life together will be snuffed out. Seeing these new measures she tells me l must get vaccinated too.
Because I have had Covid the vaccine will provide me zero benefit. And I have been following the rising number of adverse events indicating the real risks. Even more, I want to resist the social-political risks I have alluded to above.
What can I do? My first option is to wait until the level of enforcement is clear. One thing I have learned in France is that while there are many rules, many are ignored. I also hope there will be a general uprising in the streets in the French tradition. But up to now I have seen very little resistance to the draconian measures either publicly or individually.
Please wish me luck.
